Live Blogging Day 3 of Senate Action on D.C. Voting Rights

Catch up on Wednesday's senate debate here.

9:53 a.m. Jon Kyl and Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin have been hashing out Kyl's retrocession amendment for about 20 minutes now. We missed the opening salvo, but Cardin has made the overall point that Maryland would have to approve retrocession before it could actually happen, and Kyl has accepted that this is the case. Cardin further argues that the people of Maryland don't want the District to become part of their state, and Kyl further accepted that Cardin would know that better than he would.

Lieberman is now making the case that retrocession would also require the repeal of the 23rd amendment, which granted D.C. three electoral votes.

10:20 a.m. Delaware's Tom Carper (D) got up a little while ago and started talking about faith, a pretty good indication that the senate floor is practically empty still. He did get around to talking about the bill at hand eventually, waxing a little emotionally about how giving D.C. the vote is the right thing to do. After some more brief remarks from Lieberman, we're now just waiting for the vote on the Kyl amendment.

10:58 a.m. The retrocession amendment has failed, by a vote of 30-67. Kind of amazing that there are 30 senators perfectly willing to give the District to Maryland without bothering to consult either the District or Maryland. No matter though, since the amendment has now been dispensed with.

Lieberman says the next amendment on the bill to be taken up will be Jim DeMint's fairness doctrine amendment.

11:20 a.m. Sen. Grassley has been introducing other business related to the budget for a while, so we were able to go back and listen to all the Kyl amendment votes again, and we were surprised to find that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.), one of the bill's co-sponsors, voted for the retrocession amendment. Can't imagine Joe Lieberman appreciated his partner in this legislation voting in favor of such an addition. Why did Hatch do that?

11:31 a.m. John Ensign is talking about introducing an amendment that would tie the bill to keeping D.C.'s school voucher program intact in this year's budget. He's stopped short of actually introducing the amendment so far in the hopes that some kind of agreement on this can be reached separately.

11:35 a.m. Now Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has come up to rebut Ensign's previous amendment, the one that would repeal D.C.'s current gun laws. This is the amendment that seems most likely to end up being approved, given the popularity of gun rights legislation among members of Congress. "I have been quiet on this," Feinstein says, "but we do need to fight back against these kinds of amendments."

12:01 p.m. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) gave a densely-packed response to several amendments at once. He's against the fairness doctrine amendment, and for Ensign's suggestion to mandate keeping vouchers intact.

12:04 p.m. Lieberman is trying to schedule some votes on the remaining amendments. Looks like 2 p.m. for the Durbin amendment and the DeMint amendment after that. The day is shaping up to be so packed that a vote on the bill itself today is starting to look less likely.

12:05 p.m. DeMint describes the District as having been set up as a "neutral entity" where people would live and work who are "associated with the business of the federal government." This is the kind of tone-deaf argument that really aggravates D.C. residents. If Sen. DeMint is confused about whether there is a large proportion of people living and working in the District of Columbia who have no ties whatsoever to the federal government, we'd like to invite him to spend the day with us while we take him around town and introduce him to our city and the people who actually live here. Perhaps the senator just hasn't ever had the time to interact with D.C. residents. We'd be happy to help him rectify that.

12:25 p.m. DeMint and Durbin are now going back and forth on their fairness doctrine amendments. For those unfamiliar with the issue, here's some background. This is one of those things that comes up every few years. Durbin says his amendment would protect the FCC requirement for broadcasters to show a certain amount of public interest programming. DeMint says his amendment would merely prohibit the FCC from setting quotas for what fair and balanced broadcasting means.

Obviously, this issue has nothing at all do with D.C. voting rights.

12:48 p.m. Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) has formally offered Ensign's 2nd amendment, tying the bill to the continuation of D.C.'s school voucher program, known as the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provides up to $7500 per student to fund tuition and fees at private schools for low income D.C. students. This amendment is the result of the very recent release of the 2009 Omnibus spending bill, which has put the program in danger.

2:05 p.m. There was a bit of a break in S.160-related business there, but the Senate is about to begin voting on the Durbin Amendment, which, as he described it earlier, seeks to protect FCC requirements that broadcasters must show a certain amount of public interest programming and calls for the FCC to "encourage diversity in media ownership." It does not, as far as we understand it, actually reinstate the fairness doctrine.

2:30 p.m. The Durbin amendment has been approved, 57-41. Now, I'm by no means an expert on the history of the fairness doctrine, but one thing that strikes me here: If Sen. Durbin is really as much a friend to this bill as he says he is, it's pretty lame to attach an amendment that splits so strongly across party lines. It's possible, if not all that likely, that it could endanger the bill's passage because those Republicans who support the bill might not be able to stomach voting for it with this amendment attached. Now, it's my understanding that Durbin offered this amendment mostly in response to DeMint's amendment, and it does seem as though the votes are there for the bill no matter what, but still.

They're going to proceed to vote on the DeMint amendment now. How is it possible that both amendments could be in effect at the same time? DeMint's amendment, it seems, more or less just states that the Senate is against reinstating the fairness doctrine. Durbin's successful amendment did not actually bring the fairness doctrine back.

2:47 p.m. OK, I get it now. DeMint's amendment is going to pass by an overwhelming majority. Since so many Senate Democrats were planning to vote for it, they had to have Durbin offer his own amendment to make sure the language protecting public interest programming was included in the bill. These two amendments, together, actually add up to no policy changes at all. There will still be no fairness doctrine, and there will still be FCC regulations mandating public interest programming. So it goes in the United States Senate.

Final vote tally 87-11. The amendment passes.

2:53 p.m. Whew, OK, Lieberman just set up a ton of conditions that would lead up to there being a requirement to have 60 votes on the bill (at least, I think that's what he said -- it might have been 60 votes on the Ensign amendment, he spoke so fast I didn't totally keep up). He's asked that a couple of the amendments be withdrawn, and that the vote on the Ensign gun amendment be scheduled for 3:45 p.m.

John Thune has gone ahead and withdrawn his amendment in response to Lieberman's request. If you'll recall, Thune's amendment was also about guns, but would allow citizens to carry concealed firearms across state lines as long as they had permits from their home states to legally carry them.

3:14 p.m. We've had debate on the Ensign amendment for the last 15 minutes. Ensign came up and made much the same argument he did yesterday to strike down D.C.'s existing, post-Heller gun laws, and now Chuck Schumer is back again as well to repeat his opposition to this amendment.

3:58 p.m. The senators will now vote on the Ensign amendment, which would drop criminal penalties for possessing unregistered firearms inside the District of Columbia, and repeal the post-Heller gun registration regulations adopted by the D.C. Council. Earlier today, D.C. Council chair Vincent Gray and gun law author Phil Mendelson sent letters to Harry Reid and Joe Lieberman urging them to do all they could to prevent this amendment from passing. We've also heard a number of voting rights activists are down on the Hill for last-minute lobbying efforts against the amendment.

4:05 p.m. Bill co-sponsor Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.) has also voted for the Ensign amendment. That makes two amendments that voting rights supporters have really not wanted that Hatch has voted for. Lieberman, Hatch and Norton have just announced a joint press conference for today, immediately following the final vote (which we guess means there WILL be a final vote on the bill today). We sincerely hope someone asks Sen. Hatch about those two votes.

4:17 p.m. The Ensign amendment has passed, 62-36. This is a huge blow to the D.C. Council.

And now Harry Reid has called for a vote on the bill itself. This is all happening very fast now. They are going to read the bill again, with its amendments, and then vote.

4:30 p.m. As promised, Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski has voted against the bill, despite earlier voting for cloture. We're still waiting on the final tally.

4:37 p.m. 61-37. The bill as amended is passed.